The powerful integration of Egnyte and Microsoft 365 for the web enables a seamless user collaboration experience. This article covers how to use the Microsoft 365 for the web integration, but users can also use Egnyte for Microsoft 365 from their mobile device (iOS, Android, and Windows).
In addition, Egnyte's support for Microsoft 365 for the web’s co-authoring capability enables multiple users to edit the same document simultaneously while viewing changes made by others in real-time.
Microsoft 365 Licensing Requirements
Users must have a valid Microsoft 365 Account to edit files.
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Create a New Microsoft 365 File
Creating Documents from a Template
Open and Edit an Microsoft 365 File
Additional Information
Create a New Microsoft 365 File
User can create a new Microsoft 365 File (Word, Excel, or PowerPoint) directly from Egnyte Web UI in just a few easy steps.
- Navigate to Egnyte WebUI
- Click on the + Create drop-down
- Select the type of file to create – for example Word Online Document
- Alternatively, if the user intends to create the document from the template
- Navigate to the sub-menu by hovering on > and Select From Template from the dropdown
- Select the specific template from the subsequent dropdown.
Creating Documents from the Home Dashboard:
The option to create documents will not be available if MS 365 integration is not enabled for the domain/user.
When creating a new Microsoft 365 file from the WebUI, users will see a pop-up. The pop-up offers options to rename the document, modify the file's Location, and enable Draft mode.
After clicking Save, the user will be taken to a new tab to start working on the new file. All changes are automatically saved within Egnyte.
The default location for the documents created from the home dashboard will be Private/User’s Private Folder Name/Quick Created Files/YYYY, where YYYY is the year in which the document is created.
For example, if the document is created on 15th December 2022 and the user’s private folder name is myprivatefolder, then the default location will be Private/myprivatefolder/Quick Created Files/2022.
This will help the user structure the documents created from the home dashboard for easy management.
This folder will get created in the user’s private folder when the user clicks on the Create menu from the home dashboard.
Creating Documents from a Template
While creating the document from the template, users will be prompted to enter the name for the new document to be created and then the document created will be opened in the new tab for editing and collaboration. All changes are automatically saved within Egnyte.
If the document is in a format which is not supported for co-editing, the document created from the template will not open for editing. In such a case, if the user is creating the document from the home dashboard, the user will get an option to either preview the file or navigate to the folder where the document is created as shown below.
Open and Edit an Microsoft 365 File
To open a file in Microsoft 365 for the web for this example, right-click on the file (or click the checkbox next to a file), click on Edit -> Word for the Web.
Users will need to log in using their Microsoft 365 account periodically to verify their subscription is active. Once they have done that, they should see their file is ready for editing.
To edit the file, simply make the desired changes to the file. Any changes are automatically saved to Egnyte as they are made.
Additional Information
Supported File Types
The user may notice some Microsoft 365 files have an Edit option while others may only have a View option. This is because Microsoft 365 for the web only supports their newer file formats (e.g., docx, pptx, xlsx) for editing in Microsoft 365 for the web. Others are supported in a view-only mode. A list of supported extensions is available here.
Other Notes
- Microsoft 365 for the web has a more limited feature set than the installed version. Many special features like forms, advanced document elements, and such can result in an error message prompting the users to use read-only mode.
- Microsoft imposes API size limits for Microsoft 365 for the web files. API limitations are imposed equally on all of Microsoft's partners. Egnyte's own API is not limited by these constraints; it will automatically allow larger files to work with Microsoft applications when Microsoft removes or reduces their limitations. Refer to this helpdesk article for the specific limits for the Microsoft 365 for the web application.